The Smart City as a Local Innovation Platform Dr. Nils Walravens IMEC-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel WinVorm 24.10.2017, Kortrijk
2008 was a turning point More mobile than fixed broadband subscriptions More things than people connected to the internet More than 50% of the global population lives in urban areas http://www.telecompetitor.com/itu-finds-two-times-more-mobile-than-fixedbroadband-subscribers/ http://blogs.cisco.com/diversity/the-internet-of-things-infographic/ http://www.unfpa.org/pds/urbanization.htm
The Smart City? A city that monitors and integrates conditions of all of its critical infrastructures [...] can better optimize its resources, plan its preventive maintenance activities, and monitor security aspects while maximizing services to its citizens. (Hall, 2000) The bias lurking behind every large-scale smart city is a belief that bottom-up complexity can be bottled and put to use for top-down ends that a central agency, with the right computer program, could one day manage and even dictate the complex needs of an actual city. (Lindsay, 2011)
The Smart City? (Giffinger et al., 2007)
The Smart City? We believe a city to be smart when investments in human and social capital and traditional (transport) and modern (ICT) communication infrastructure fuel sustainable economic growth and a high quality of life, with a wise management of natural resources, through participatory governance. (Caragliu et al., 2009, p. 6)
The Smart City? a smart city is a well defined geographical area, in which high technologies such as ICT, logistic, energy production, and so on, cooperate to create benefits for citizens in terms of well being, inclusion and participation, environmental quality, intelligent development; it is governed by a well defined pool of subjects, able to state the rules and policy for the city government and development (Dameri, 2013)
The Smart Angle tele- (1980s) Telecommunications, PCs The death of distance between 2 physical points e- (1990s) Web platforms Moving from physical to virtual collective space i- (2000s) Mobile technologies Personalizing virtual space smart- (2010s) IoT, wearables, cloud computing Internet becomes contextual Merging of virtual and physical space
What is going on?
What is going on? 2 general approaches How do we meet in the middle? What do we need?
The Control-Room
Top-down Important for Policy, Regulation, Governance and Business Provides a level playing field, setting rules of the game Strives for efficiency gains: sustainability Heightens security & safety +Economic potential I sleep better thanks to it. The worst thing is not having the information, to not have the tools to act. But we do now. Eduardo Paes, Mayor of Rio
Top-down Technological determinism What is measured, and what is not? Everything safe, but nothing private? Dictated by commercial interests Interurban competition Commodification of public space Control may hinder or even diminish the potential for (scalable) innovation, inherent to cities
Bottom-up Smart Citizens Cities smart by nature Local innovation potential Improvement comes from the people who use it Tactical Urbanism Or from those frustrated by it Even turning it into profitable businesses The smartest cities are the ones that embrace openness, randomness, serendipity-everything that makes a city great. (Lindsay, 2011)
Bottom-up Chaotic Well-being of citizens depends on infrastructures as well as regulation, governance Incompatible with/disruptive to global economy Lack of central vision, illegal This approach entails issues on scalability, long-term vision and barriers and incentives to entry
Smart City as a Local Innovation Platform Change seldom arises from purely top-down or bottom-up systems and processes. (Shepard & Simeti, 2013)
Local Innovation Platform Cities are shared resource & responsibility An enabling environment for all involved stakeholders Collaboration Local intelligence Creativity of citizens, experts, civil society, academia, politicians, big and small businesses Quadruple helix Technology as the enabler
Local Innovation Platform No one has so far found a way to intelligently bring together the big technology platforms offered by global corporations, with local technology projects and the interests of citizens. (Shepard & Simeti, 2013) Open Data Open Innovation Co-Design Living Labs
Smart City as a Local Innovation Platform Collaborative Collective Contextual
The imec.livinglabs definition a real-life test and experimentation environment where users and producers cocreate innovations in a trusted, open ecosystem that enables business innovation
The imec.livinglabs enablers Panel Management We ll find and motivate your testusers Living Lab Back-Office We provide the right back-office tools for a living lab project e.g. LLADA Prototyping & testing We ll model a rough idea into a usable app for daily life and test it through Simulate Your Business Co-design of collaborative business model on the fly European Network of Living Labs Gateway to 300+ Living Labs Importance of validated toolbox! A toolbox for any project type: ICON, Living Lab, CIP, FP7,
Example: Zwerm
City of Things overview Users, applications & business Data processing and analytics Network Hardware Privacy, security Management interface
CoT Unique Selling Proposition + + Multi-technology + Leveraging existing strengths + + + Open testbed + + Integrated approach
City of Things IoT reference living lab and technology lab in Europe for international and local stakeholders to create, test and validate IoT services, applications and technologies in a large scale, real life and real time smart city environment
Really cool! But,
Really cool! But, what about the data?
Smart Flanders Which urban challenges can we start tackling in a better way today, by bringing together data in smarter ways and making them available for reuse? (linked & open)? Based on this exercise, which new opportunities do we identify for more innovative, different or other ways of collecting, processing and opening data? https://smart.flanders.be
Smart Flanders Principles Support programme, communications channel, knowledge and interaction platform Focus on real-time open data and shared reference architectures Cooperation between cities and actors from the quadruple helix Implementation-driven Internationally networked Lighthouse model for smaller cities (13 centre cities and VGC Brussels) à Open Data Charter à First datapilot on real time parking availability data
Smart Flanders Offer Practices and tools for cost efficient data publication Support in defining and setting up data pilots with societal impact Stimulating data reuse with innovation as the goal Working towards better inter- and intragovernmental data sharing Support in avoiding vendor lock-in
Smart Flanders Offer Building bridges to existing initiatives Building on available solutions and technologies Gathering and translating international insights Support participation in (inter)national projects, pilots and so on Support matchmaking with the market where possible
Smart Flanders Data Pilot Proof of concept https://smartflanders-poc.netlify.com/#/parkings Informatiepagina https://datapiloten.be/parking
Importance of this approach to data publishing Not this visualisation, however: Automation Reuse (already by two startups and researchers, more needed for larger players) Scalability and cost for cities Data-based policy (internal reuse) Transparency
Also really cool! But,
The ownership question Who will own the infrastructure? Who will own the data? Who will own the platforms?
The value question Public & private? Direct & indirect?
Some recommendations I Develop a vision, personify it Set (some) ambitious and measurable goals Break barriers hindering cooperation Tackle fragmentation in (open) data policies Link up to existing expertise
Some recommendations II Identify the potential return of open data Engage citizens through active outreach Join international standards Consider infrastructure Try innovative funding schemes
What makes a city smart? The wrong way The right way Use case-driven Vendor lock-in Fragmentation Top-down vs bottom-up Technocratic Alone Problem-driven Open data, systems Shared standards The city as a platform Democratic Together
Contact E. nils.walravens@vub.ac.be T. +32 2 629 16 21 Tw. @nwalrave W. smit.vub.ac.be / smart.flanders.be / imec.be IMEC-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Pleinlaan 9, 1050 Brussels, Belgium IMEC-City of Things Startup Village, Lange Gasthuisstraat 29-31, Antwerp, Belgium